This is a fanfic and is done for fun, not profit.
-The Alchemy of Love-
Chapter Twelve
By William Nichols
Tenchi steadied his gaze as he leveled his bokken. He had much on his mind, and he reckoned a little heavy practice would help him focus. Symbolically, he brought his sword down in several dicing motions, as if he was slicing his problems into smaller pieces. Together, they were too much for him to ponder at once. But in their elemental pieces, he just might be able to make some sense out of them.
He had started down this path, to find out what his own feelings for the girls were, if they were anything more than friendship. Since that day, he knew he felt more than friendship for Ryoko and Ayeka, but he was not just sure what that was. Each was beautiful and strong in their own regards. Last night had proven that point. Being with them both made him feel complete in a sense, yet Tenchi still felt empty in another. He still needed to know more. The vast majority of time he had spent with the girls was as a group, and not individually. Therein lay the core of his first fear. He was afraid that if he spent time with one of them alone, he might start favoring that one over the other, and that would lead to heartbreak.
'And that would ruin everything,' he thought as he spun on one foot before back flipping three times and landing in a defensive stance. 'Wouldn't it?'
'I was so alone before they came,' he admitted to himself. 'I don't want to be alone again…'
'But you will be…' a voiced taunted in the back of his mind. 'You will be alone, and there is nothing you can do to stop it…'
'Shut up!' Tenchi yelled at himself. With a scream he charged forward and brought his blade up in a short arc, then cross-cutting to his left in one fluid motion. A feigned parry to his right returned him to his defensive posture. 'Nothing is concrete. Nothing is set in stone.'
'But it is,' his inner demon taunted. 'You cannot change what has been ordained from the beginning. You shall inherit the same fortune as your ancestors.'
Tenchi froze. That was his worst fear. No matter what he decided, Ryoko alone, Ayeka alone, or them both; that ultimately in the end he would suffer the same fate as his father and grandfather. He would be alone, the one he loved taken from him by the fates for their own cruel intentions. Shaking his head, Tenchi began a new set of kata. The slow, measured movements help clear his mind, but the underlying problem was still there. He was scared.
'See,' his devil toyed. 'I know your worst of fears.'
'Fear can be overcome,' Tenchi said as stoically as Katsuhito would. If he knew anything, it was that fact. He had already conquered so many doubts in his life. His fears that he had been responsible for his mother's death; his fears that no one loved him; and fears that he could not stand up to protect his new family.
And it was this fear that worried right now. The fact that he and Ryoko had the same dream, with the same creature was unsettling. Even more unnerving was the fact that they each saw different members of the family die in their respective dreams. What this meant, he did not know. He had already seen so many threats as such, Kagato, Dr. Clay, Garyu; just to name a few. Summoning the courage to deal with the threat, if there really was one, would not be a problem.
His lingering doubts stayed on the dream though, and how he had seemingly heard Ryoko call for him. Near as he could tell it would have coincided with when he saw her and Ayeka killed in his dream. 'Why didn't Ayeka share the dream then too?' Tenchi thought. 'If I dreamed it, and Ryoko dreamed it, there has to be some connection, but Ayeka should have dreamed it too…'
Tenchi shook his head to clear the haze of thoughts before he resumed his practices. He knew the dream held some significance, but just what?
Sidelining that train of thoughts for now, Tenchi turned to Ayeka's proposal. She had asked him outright, to accept both she and Ryoko as equals. The thought was not so terribly unsettling. It would be the easy way out in one sense, and be the hard road in the other. He would have the both of them, yet he would have to juggle them. And he already knew what being caught between a warring Ayeka and Ryoko could be like. 'Is that what I want?' Tenchi asked himself as he began to practice his forward lunges. Each time he brought the bokken down he pondered the situation. 'Is it? Is that what I want? My own harem?' Tenchi shook his head, banishing the thought. 'They would not be a harem.'
Tenchi gritted his teeth as swung the bokken with all his might to this left, then to his right, trying to keep the motion as fluid as possible. 'Ayeka knows that I don't want to be an emperor, but that's what her offer would likely involve, unless they make me a consort or something of the like,' he pondered, trying to draw a mental analogy between earth and Juraian royalties. 'But what about Ryoko? Could they forgive the person that attacked their planet? We both know the real Ryoko, but could others put their bigotry and hatred aside? Could they?' Sighing heavily, Tenchi began to circle the practice yard, sword drawn, waiting on his unseen assailant to strike.
Without realizing it, Tenchi's mind projected a mental image of Ryoko and Ayeka circling apart from him, where his phantasmagoric opponent would have been. Each was using their wiles to seduce him, telling him that they were the best one for him. They were so enticing, telling him how wonderful his life would be with them. Tenchi held his ground, until they stepped in unison towards him. Now the phantoms were telling how perfect things would be with them both. Tenchi started shaking as the phantoms drew nearer. The pair of ghosts stopped less than a meter from Tenchi, and glared at him seductively. Tenchi swallowed audibly, just as the wraiths lunged for him with a blood curdling screech. Instinctively he brought his bokken down. Instantly the two specters dissolved into a shimmer of multi-colored specks, leaving Tenchi with only a cold shiver racing over his body.
'I'm letting my mind get away from me,' he scolded himself, as he took several great, gulping breaths. 'I can't give in to my fear, or I will never know where my heart lies.' As his nerves calmed, Tenchi began a slow, deliberate kata.
Finishing his kata, Tenchi slowly circled the small training target hanging from a tree branch. The small bit of wood was no longer than three centimeters around and five long. It hung perfectly still in the afternoon air, waiting for Tenchi to strike. The exercise was designed to perfect hand-eye coordination. The hanging block would act like an erratic pendulum, swinging to and fro once set into motion by a good swift whack. The difficulty in the exercise was to hit the block on each down swing, never allowing it to complete a full arc. The smaller the block, the more difficult the practice; and true masters will attempt the exercise with more than one block in play. Tenchi had tried to keep three blocks in motion once, lasting only a few minutes before being hit in the back of the head by two of the blocks. He remembered that day well.
'You did well,' his grandfather applauded. 'But you still have much to practice.' Then without speaking a word Katsuhito fixed a fourth block from the branch and leveled his bokken at the center of the group. Tenchi watched in amazement as his grandfather set all the blocks into motion with one great swing and then proceeded to keep them in motion for the better part of ten minutes, before he allowed one to miss. Even then, Tenchi was not completely confident that the one miss was an accident.
Tenchi glared at the block, remembering his grandfathers' actions. After a few calming breathes, he lunged towards the block. With a sharp crack he sent it spinning away from him. Reflexively he smacked it again with a backhanded slice before pirouetting and bopping it with a well timed blocking move. Tenchi focused on the block, seeing it and only it as he practiced. Its erratic motions followed no logic, just the physical reaction to the force he exerted upon it.
That is when his epiphany hit, along with the block upside the back of his head. Tenchi staggered from the training square and sat upon a large boulder. Patting his face and neck down with a towel, he began to calm his breathing with a series of oft practiced techniques. As he sat there, he watched the block swing back and forth is shallower and shallower arcs until it came to a rest, spinning clockwise then counter clockwise a few times.
While he was struggling to keep up with the block, he realized it would only do what he enacted upon it. The same held true with the girls. If he put his fear of being alone on them, in the end it would come true, in one form or another. I he tried to love them both, he could. If he tried to love just one, he could. As with the block, he was the prime mover of the current situation. His actions would dictate not only his future, but Ayeka and Ryoko's futures as well. Would both accept his love equally? How would one react over the other?
He did not know the answer to these questions, nor the others he had pondered as of yet, but he was certain that he would, in time. And if the answers never came, he would have to live with that. But Tenchi vowed to himself, that he would do everything in his power to find those answers.
***
